Tanjoubi
by kaliawai512
Summary: In the pale light of his apartment, all alone, Ryou watched the candle's flame flicker and gleam. With a smile, he whispered, "Happy birthday to me." And in the back of his mind, a voice laughed. Pre-Duelist Kingdom. Non-romance.


**I don't know why I make a habit of writing things that are at least vaguely angsty for characters' birthdays. It's not like I'm a really mean person – I'm the cheesy kid who brings cake, cards and presents to school (and I'm in **_**college**_**). But don't worry, writing pure angst with nothing else is much too difficult to actually manage, so I'm not just writing a sob story here.**

… **though of all characters to write sob stories for, poor Ryou would probably be the easiest.**

**I find it fairly ironic that it's only on my fourth birthday fic that I actually title the story "Tanjoubi" (Japanese for "birthday"). It seemed the only fitting title. This story is fairly straightforward: it takes place before Duelist Kingdom in the second series anime, which seems to assume that the RPG game of the manga and Season Zero never occurred. Non-romance, as with just about all my works. Rated for references to violence, somewhat more morbid and creepy than my usual works.**

**And a note: Yami Bakura is one of my favorite villains of all time. I respect him, I think he's fantastically horrible, and I've done my research on him. In my humble opinion and understanding (and as always, you are perfectly free to disagree), Yami Bakura seems to be a combination of two entities: Zorc and Thief King Bakura. Zorc, at least in some versions, is supposed to be created from pure anger, negative emotions, and dark energy, making him quite literally an incarnation of evil. However, Thief King Bakura, misguided as he was, was **_**not **_**evil. He had a good side. And I believe that any bit of kindness or mercy shown while Yami Bakura was in existence was because of him. Therefore, despite the fact that I believe **_**Zorc **_**was evil, I believe **_**Yami Bakura **_**had at least hints of a good side. Again, you may disagree.**

**Finally, a mini-poll: I've got a number of stories in the works and many almost complete, but I'm debating over which story to post next: I have two that are close enough to complete as of now. Would you prefer to read a Kaiba brothers oneshot or a post-canon fic with Yuugi and Anzu? Both will be posted at one point or another, but I'd love to hear which I should finish up next.**

**Happy birthday, Ryou! My hopes that in post-canon, you are truly able to enjoy each year you have. I hope all of you enjoy, and please leave a review when you're done!**

**EDIT: Wow, there's another birthday fic up for Ryou! Yay, I'm not alone! I haven't gotten the chance to read it yet, but man, am I glad I'm not the only one who likes to write these.  
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_Tanjoubi_

He needed to get a new alarm clock.

It wasn't an old alarm clock, in fact he had just bought it last year. But he had only gotten it because it fit into the budget he had had to restrict himself to after he moved into his first mansion apartment by himself, and instead of ringing out a gentle beeping to wake him or playing his favorite radio station like the one at his father's house had done, this one sounded more like the siren on a fire engine, multiplied in volume by eight.

He was getting really tired of waking up with a headache.

But no matter how tired he was of the alarm clock, Ryou did not have it in himself to knock it off the little table by his bed or punch it. He reached over and clicked it off, and the sound ceased, and he sighed very loud and very long in the blessed silence of the room.

It was a new day. And it was time to wake up.

He blinked open his eyes in full to greet the light that streamed in through his window. He always left his curtains open when he went to sleep, so he could see the moon and the stars and so the sun would be there to brighten his bedroom when he woke in the morning. He didn't like waking in the dark. Then he just woke in fear. Woke to the voices in his head that got louder when the light was gone, woke to the laughter that never ceased, no matter how he tried to run away.

He knew the light really made no difference, and he was no safer than he was in the dark. But it gave him some odd sense of comfort, and that was more than he got from most anything else.

Ryou pushed the blankets away from himself, and with the air that met the bare skin on his arms he was suddenly reminded of the cold, stinging metal pressing against his chest. The gold never warmed up, not like his mother's rings did when he and Amane had tried them on for a whole day while she was out shopping, not like Amane's favorite silver necklace she wore even in the bath. The gold stayed chilled, as it always had, and Ryou had long given up the idea that he would grow used it.

But the cold was better than the few times the spikes of the Ring had dug themselves into his skin, and he would remind himself of that fact as many times as he needed to get it through his head.

He had to believe he was fortunate.

And maybe today would be a good day. He would go out and go about his normal activities, and maybe nothing bad would happen. Maybe he could enjoy this day, and get the most out of it, and maybe he could try to look forward to the good he hoped might come.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed so his bare feet met the cool hard wood of the floor. He supposed a long time ago he might have jerked away until he could warm his toes and get used to the feeling of the air on his skin, but now he relished in each moment the soles of his feet brushed the smooth surface. It was real. This was all real, and it was all familiar.

It was safe. It was not voice in his head.

It was not nightmares.

Ryou nodded to himself, and he curled his lips into something that resembled what his smile had once been. It was not the same smile he had worn years ago. It was not the smile he had given Amane on her birthday, or the smile he had worn when she gave him her own gift on his, wrapped all by herself, even though no one had ever taught her how to wrap and there was always too much tape and he could see the corners of the box breaking through the paper. It was a smile, though, and he wore it as if she might have liked to see it.

He brushed his feet again on the floor as he stood and walked around the room. He stood in front of the open window and looked down, eight stories below, to the bustling streets and the people that woke bright and early to start their days. The sun was warm, only speckles of clouds, and he just stayed there in the light for a very long time.

The Ring did not like when he stood wasting time like this, and its metal always felt colder and somehow _impatient _when he did so. But today he didn't care. Today he ignored it, even though he knew that would only made it sharper and colder, and today he let himself bask in the warmth of the sun, and the warmth of his own hope.

Today, maybe just for today, the Ring wasn't real. The Ring was just a cold piece of metal around his neck, and maybe today, he would stop thinking of it like it had an opinion.

A laugh, so vague and chilling and omnipresent rang out in his mind, and Ryou could not suppress the shudder and the anxious twitch in his arm.

He shuffled to his closet and slid open the door.

He only had a few school uniforms—he hadn't had the chance to go out and buy more since he started at Domino High, and there were still several of the uniforms from his last school hidden in the bottom of the stacks gathering dust. But he did laundry every few days and kept every collared shirt and jacket and pair of pants as neatly folded as he could. He didn't suppose anyone had noticed he often wore the same outfit every other day.

Ryou shifted through his casual clothes he had been wearing for the past month. Jeans, T-shirts, all of them just as clean, and almost as neatly folded. But some of them were out of place. A pant leg hanging out of a stack, a shirt that had been thrown on top of the rest of the clothes when it should have been folded, and he could have sworn it hadn't been that way when he had gotten his outfit yesterday morning.

His hands paused, resting on the messy pair of jeans, and he shook his head with fervency uncharacteristic of his usual demeanor. No. No, that was silly. The more he thought like this, the more he was going to see these things. Notice little things out of place. Everyone forgot sometimes. Everyone had a moment of carelessness when they didn't fold their clothes properly or they left their apartment keys on the bedroom floor instead of on the kitchen counter, or the apple that had been in the top shelf of the fridge vanishing without any explanation.

Things happened.

It didn't mean anything was wrong.

Ryou dug his fingers in, quicker than he had intended, without as much regard for keeping the rest of his clothes neat, and pulled out a shirt and jacket and pants, and snatched a pair of clean white socks from the shelf below. He settled the uniform on one arm, and for a moment, he stood there and let himself take in the real feeling of the fabric against his skin.

Yes. This was what was real. This was what he had to see. This was what had to stick.

He reached one hand to close the door, but paused with his fingers frozen in mid-air.

He did not blink.

One of the sleeves of another jacket had fallen out of place in his rush to gather a uniform. And at first glance, that was all it was. A dark blue uniform jacket sleeve, out of place, perhaps to be fixed now, but either way, nothing out of ordinary.

But he stared for a very long time at that sleeve, and the longer he stared, the clearer several dots near the cuff stood out from the blue of the fabric. Several blotted splotches that had since dried and settled in and faded in color, but which still retained their original crimson hue, almost glowing as the sunlight illuminated their shape.

Images. Blood dribbling onto sleeves as knives dug in, pale hands squeezing the breath and pulse from a throat. Silent cries. Screams never heard.

And laughter, echoing in the dark.

Ryou hardly controlled his own feet as he raced out of the bedroom and slammed the door behind him, not stopping, not lightening his steps, until he reached the living room and hid his face in the cushions of the couch.

But he did not return to make his bed, and he left the apartment half an hour later without a single glance back at the bedroom door.

* * *

><p>Going to school, he supposed, had been the toughest part after he realized what was happening.<p>

It was necessary, of course, even though his father wouldn't know if he stopped going and he was better than most at coming up with excuses. He would still skip a few days here and there, if things were worse than normal, and sometimes after a few days spent at home, locked in the apartment with the curtains closed and the bolt in place, he would fall asleep on the couch and wake up to find himself in the middle of math class.

He could never quite understand why _he _would want to make sure he went to school.

And he wasn't particularly keen to try and ask.

But today he went to school. It was a Monday and he had already been away on school break for a month. That was enough time for him to spend on his own, and besides, he was still new to this school. The teachers had yet to get used to his tendency not to show up. And maybe, just maybe, he could spend this one day at school in peace.

He slipped into the chair he had claimed as his own right before the break began in the back corner of the room—the one the delinquents had written dirty words on that he ruined all his erasers trying to get rid of when he was supposed to be listening to lessons—and got out his books for first period. One of the few pencils that was still in good shape, the notebook full of diligent notes surrounded by doodles he didn't remember drawing of shadows and darkness and crimson slashes near the wrist.

But the teachers never looked at his notebook. And he still didn't know if that was because they thought he was too sweet to be anything but a good student, or because they were simply too afraid to find out.

He stayed quiet as the other students filtered in, just like he always did, and he ducked his head down in hopes that no one would notice him and attempt to talk. He didn't smile. He didn't glance up. He stared at his desk and he listened to the shuffling of feet, the mumbling of his fellow classmates, and he flinched at the all-too-familiar giggles of the girls he knew were staring at him, but would never come within a meter of his desk.

Ryou tried his best not to be unkind to them. But even though they were impulsive and fleeting, they weren't stupid. They could sense the darkness floating around him like a plague, and though they still smiled across the classroom and waved and sometimes wrote his name in large characters in their notebooks so it was blatantly hard to ignore when he walked by, they never got close.

That was good. They would be alright.

"Bakura-kun!"

Ryou flinched and squeezed the pencil he had taken to fiddling in his left hand.

He didn't need to look up at the voice, and he knew he was only bringing danger nearer and nearer by acknowledging that he had been spoken to. He could have just kept staring at his desk. He could have just pretended he hadn't heard, or act angry, something he had never actually tried before but was seriously beginning to consider.

He could have done many other, safer things. But he didn't. He looked up, and met the eyes of the short, spiky-haired classmate of his with the glinting golden pyramid hanging from a rope around his neck.

One of the points of the Ring dug itself into the tender skin of his chest, and Ryou resisted the urge to scream.

"'Morning, Bakura-kun!" came the second call, gentle as ever, accompanied by that smile that still held the hint of concern Ryou could never quite make the other boy shake. The point dug deeper in his skin, threatening to draw blood, but Ryou just forced his lips into a smile and a nod.

"Good morning, Yuugi-kun."

Yuugi-kun smiled just the same, even as Ryou's smile faded and he pressed his hands hard against the surface of his desk. Hoping. Wishing. Begging.

But the smile on Yuugi-kun's face vanished, and Ryou felt the points tear the first layer of flesh.

"Are you okay?" Yuugi-kun quirked his head in a gesture Ryou might have appreciated at any other time. "You seem a little …"

Ryou nodded. He knew the motion was far too quick, far too desperate to be believed, but he made it anyway, and took to staring at the collar of Yuugi-kun's shirt to avoid meeting his eyes. "Yes … yes, I'm fine. How are you?"

Yuugi-kun did not reply. He blinked and stared at Ryou, and Ryou stared at his collar, only glancing up every few moments to look him in the eyes.

It took nearly half a minute for Yuugi-kun to sigh and smile once again. He raised a hand and motioned behind him, toward the familiar taller classmate with blonde hair that somehow suited him, uniform shirt untucked, making small talk with one of the other students.

"You remember Jounouchi-kun? Jounouchi-kun! How about we sit over here today?"

Ryou swallowed. The boy with the mop of blonde hair turned and cocked his head.

"Huh? Oh, sure!"

Jounouchi-kun started down the aisle, navigating around the rest of the students and coming closer and closer to where Ryou sat. Yuugi-kun began motioning to the several empty desks in the corner that had once been isolated from everything. Ryou did not stop him. He wanted to. He wanted to more than even he knew. He wanted to get away.

He just sat there, though. He sat there and watched their gentle faces as Jounouchi-kun slipped around and took the chair just to Ryou's left. He watched every bit of their good intentions, and wondered how it was that they could not understand.

Or why they would even want to try.

Yuugi-kun turned again and offered that same soft, questioning look that made Ryou feel like he finally fit in and burned into his skull at the same time.

"Didn't you used to sit up front, Bakura-kun?"

Ryou shifted. Back and forth, back and forth. He wanted to run. But he didn't. He stayed, and he tried so hard to meet Yuugi-kun's eyes. There was kindness in them. Kindness, comprehension that was not real. Comprehension that could never quite be real. Ryou shifted again. "Er, um, yes, but I … just thought I'd try something new."

Yuugi-kun blinked at him, and Ryou knew all too well the disbelief in those eyes. But Yuugi-kun did not say anything about it. He just smiled and gave a tiny nod, so characteristic of him, almost like he understood.

"Oh. Alright."

Ryou almost opened his mouth, but closed it when Jounouchi-kun's voice broke into the near-silence of his area of the classroom.

"Hey, Honda, Anzu!" The taller boy waved his hand at the two others just walking in through the door, and it took everything Ryou had not to cry out for them to go. The metal stung his chest once more. Hard, cold. But he kept his hands on the desk instead of clutching the Ring beneath his shirt, even as Jounouchi-kun waved at the others again. "We're sitting over here today!"

Ryou bit the inside of his lip so hard he almost tasted drops of blood, and squeezed his hands together hard enough to see his knuckles turn white. He flicked his eyes around the four of them and down to his desk. "You don't all have to come sit with me … I mean, just because …"

"You're our friend, Bakura-kun," Yuugi-kun broke in, and when Ryou looked up he saw Yuugi-kun had taken the chair right in front of him, and had turned around to give him a smile Ryou had wished for since he was a small child. And as Ryou met his eyes, that smile only grew. "We don't want you to be alone."

There were a million things Ryou could have said. A million things he wished he could say. But he didn't say any of them. He stayed silent, not smiling, not doing anything but blink. But Yuugi-kun still smiled back at him with a kindness Ryou had wanted for such a long time, but a kindness he still wished so badly he could force away.

He relaxed his hands on his desk, let out a breath, and listened as the brunette girl with a sweet smile and the brown-spiky-haired boy with the funny laugh slipped into their seats all around him and began to talk.

When the teacher announced time for lunch, he could feel all four of their gazes turn to him as he stood from his seat, eyes locked on the floor. He could hear their calls of confusion and protest as he shuffled through the aisles and out through the classroom door. He did not look up. He did not stop. He found his spot in the stall closest to the far end of the restroom and sat against the locked door, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his fists, and though he knew he would never really hit the wall, he had to try so hard not to.

The teacher did not look up when he slipped back in the room thirty minutes into the next period, and he could feel Yuugi-kun staring at him with that sad and worried gaze that tore his mind in two as he took an empty seat on the opposite side of the room.

And in the back of his head, Ryou could feel the smirk and the chuckle, and the points of the Ring relaxed for the next few hours of the day, as if there was nothing strange about them at all.

* * *

><p>When he got home, he locked and bolted the door out of sheer reflex, even though it was still daytime and his part of the city was not known for crime.<p>

He leaned a little on the wood of the door and sighed.

Silence. Silence, and the faded light of the day through the windows of the apartment, and the cool metal of the pendant beneath his shirt. He swallowed and resisted that old urge to rip it from around his neck and run to his bedroom and hide under the covers.

He almost thought he could hear the voice laughing in the back of his head that after all this time, that old idea had even resurfaced at all.

Ryou breathed in, and breathed out, and he shook his head at his own ideas. He was home now. That was all he could think about, and that was all that mattered. He was home and locked in, and that meant one more day that Yuugi-kun and the others had not been hurt. One more day that he could keep the Ring hidden, and Yuugi-kun safe from the voice in his head.

One more day.

After nearly a minute of just standing by the door, Ryou glanced down at the letters he had picked up from his box on his way through the lobby. He didn't get letters much. And there were only two. Two envelopes, one with pre-printed address labels and the other with each character of his name scrawled in fancy, old-fashioned, blue writing, with a little heart at the beginning and end of the line.

Despite himself, he allowed his lips a tiny smile.

He took his time carrying the letters between his fingers, feeling the smoothness of the paper and the familiarity and _safety _of written correspondence. When he had first moved away from home, the letters had been a burden. They had been a reminder that he could not just escape from the world around him. There was nowhere he could run where everyone would just forget that he had ever been there. He had made his own small mark on the world, and no matter how much he wished to, he couldn't erase it.

About two months after he started living on his own, the letters had become his greatest joy.

He wouldn't always write back. Not immediately, anyway, from some fear he wasn't sure was irrational that if he raced into it, if he reestablished the connection he had once had, he would be tempted to run home and stay there. To move back. To pretend that this wasn't real and he no longer had to carry the burden of his new task.

That he _didn't _have to change schools several times a year, that no apartment ever really came to feel like home because he was never there for quite long enough, that the reason he never joined any clubs or after-school groups wasn't because he had studying to do.

No. He could not pretend. This was real. And he could not go back.

He would write back most of the time, though. After a few days, after a week, and a week after that he would receive a response, most of the time with those same pre-printed labels but with stamps from England or Africa or sometimes even South America. Hand-written letters, always, but still those pre-printed labels Ryou had once imagined his father kept in a little box on the side of his desk next to the Egyptian figurine with a man's body and a bird's head and just a short distance from his favorite black pen Ryou had given him as a birthday present when he was six.

Ryou wrote to Amane. She would never write back, of course, but he always wrote to her. Every week, sometimes more, or whenever he got some time when he felt the voice in his head just wasn't paying attention.

The voice would interrupt him in his letters, make him black out for a whole day only to find himself in front of the desk again, sometimes just laugh in the back of his mind. But the voice never hurt the letters, never changed them, and it never interrupted Ryou when he wrote her name on the back of the envelope and climbed to the roof of the mansion and tossed the letter out into a strong wind.

Ryou didn't think it had any interest in reading the letters. But once or twice he would wake up to find one of the letters he had already released reappeared at the side of his bed in the morning, torn open and crumpled around the edges like it had been squeezed while it was read.

He always supposed he could try fingerprinting it like his father had once taught him to do, but he never did. He never really wanted the confirmation that the fingerprints would be his own.

After his shoes had been slipped off and he had found a place for his backpack near the kitchen, he sat on the little couch with tears in the cushions his father had insisted he take from the old house, the couch he had never liked back home but he treasured now, and from his place there, he opened each envelope with care not to tear any paper that did not have to be torn.

The one with the fancy writing came first. He didn't need to look to know who had sent that one, either. Every birthday he would get the same thing. He pulled out that familiar card with the lace around the edges that he suspected had been hand-sewn, and the writing that he knew from experience had been hand-printed, character by character, taking time to make every mark count even though her eyes were starting to go.

Obaa-chan never wrote any news in her cards. She never asked how he was doing, and never requested a reply, and most of the time, she forgot how old he really was. But she always made her cards beautiful, as if she was trying to offer comfort in her own way even though he was quite sure that in her mind, she was offering comfort for something quite different.

He sometimes wondered if she realized how many years it had been since the wreck.

But he smiled as he ran fingers over the soft lace and read the words in the same gentle, old-fashioned script in the blue pen she had gotten from France. The pen was running low on ink, as he could tell from the faded words, but she would never stop using that pen.

She would also never stop calling him "Ryou-chan."

Ryou slipped the card back into its envelope, paused, and reached a hand to open the letter that lay on the cushion to his side. The one with the pre-printed labels and two stamps in the corner, one with a bird he couldn't identify and one with what looked like a very large, cubic rock.

He slid his finger in and cut the envelope open.

_Ryou,_

_I wish I could be there to see you on your birthday, but I'm writing from Peru, and I've sent special instructions that this letter not be delivered until today, even though I expect it arrived last week. I know you like foreign stamps, so I double-stamped the envelope, since I couldn't decide which one you might like better. My team is looking through some Incan ruins, so I'll be sending you pictures of the sites I've visited as soon as we're finished with our research. _

_ I hope everything is going well at your new school, and you've found some new friends while you've been there. If you ever have some time when I'm back in Japan, let me know; I'd like to come and visit._

_ I've included this month's rent along with a little extra. Buy yourself something for your birthday, from me, and be sure to let me know what it is when you write back._

_ Happy birthday._

_Tou-san_

He spent what felt like a very long time holding the lined paper with the smudged black ink in his left hand and the yen bills in his right. It was far more than a "little" extra, and Ryou knew his father didn't make enough for that to be affordable. But the last time he had tried to send back birthday money, he had received double the amount in his father's next letter.

It still ached somewhere deep within him, though, and he squeezed those bills between his fingers as if that would somehow will his father to no longer wish they could meet.

His father had always written letters from his trips around the world. Sent home pictures and foreign stamps and sometimes even brought back little gifts he had picked up during his travels. Then one day he brought back a trading card and a pendant from an expedition in Egypt. A round pendant with little points hanging around the edges, and a triangle in the center with a strange eye that burned into Ryou's core.

A week after he gave the Ring to Ryou, the phone rang from the hospital and a policeman showed up at their door.

Ryou knew, somewhere deep inside, that the voice in his head had not made his mother's car swerve in the rain, and had not made Amane decide to sit in the front seat instead of the back like she always did.

But sometimes having something to blame was easier.

He made sure the card and the letter were secure in their envelopes and placed in the little box he kept on his bookshelf, and he slid the bills into the pile of yen notes hidden under the couch. He sat down again, this time on the floor and ran a finger over the outline of the Ring he could still feel underneath his uniform shirt.

And a little part of him wondered if he would make Amane sad if he waited until tomorrow to write her again.

* * *

><p>It was dark, and he did not like the dark.<p>

It was only for a few moments that he had the ceiling lights off before he scurried over to the wall and flicked on the nightlights and lamps. About a month earlier he had taken all the extra money he had saved up for maybe a night out at dinner or a new game, and he had spent every coin on any nightlight he could get his hands on. Every outlet was covered, so that no corner was left dark.

The dark was where the shadows roamed. The dark was where he couldn't see. He knew, deep down, that the light couldn't truly protect him. But he was willing to do anything if only to try.

The light from each of his glowing bulbs in the wall drove away the overbearing darkness, and Ryou let out a long sigh of relief. Something in him relaxed, and for a moment, he was able to forget about the Ring around his neck.

It wouldn't dig into him if he didn't try to take it off. Not anymore. If he just left it there around his neck, if he left it on no matter where he went or what he did, even if it was hidden beneath his shirt, it left him alone. But he had tried to take it off before. Several times. He had once thrown it out the window when all the horrors of it weighed down on him all at once. Thrown it out right before bed, and closed and locked his bedroom door and his windows and buried himself deep under every blanket he owned.

He had woken up in the early hours of the morning to find blood dripping over his chest, the Ring hanging around his neck, the spikes digging deep into the flesh of his torso.

A week after that he had started looking for an apartment to stay in alone.

He only had a few small candles lying around the house. It had been a long time since he had gone shopping for them. Once or twice he would find older, bigger, worn-down wax candles lying around like they had been used, usually in the morning when he woke up. He would throw them in the trash and not care if the voice in his head got mad at him.

But it never did. Not about the candles.

He picked out a little blue one, the smallest of the bunch, one he had burned once before but whose wick was still new enough to use. He grabbed one of the rolls he had made for dinner, stuck the candle in the top, and lit one of the matches he kept on the top shelf to get it going.

Ryou set the roll with the flickering candle on the small table in his main room. He knelt down next to it, and he tried with all his might to forget about the darkness surrounding him, and focused instead on the nightlights and the small flame of the candle. He forced back images that fire always brought to him, images of burning buildings and flesh melting from bone, shook his head again, and let out a long sigh as he watched the candle burn.

The tiniest of smiles worked its way onto his face.

"Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me …"

He let his finger hover close to the flame, close enough to hurt but not quite enough to leave a mark. He closed his eyes, tight, so all he could see was the faint brightness of the candlelight through the lids of his eyes.

"Happy birthday, dear Ryou," he sang, voice so quiet and faint it felt like a ghost. He shivered. "Happy birthday to me …"

Silence. Silence, and the candle.

He drew in a deep breath, and in one moment, huffed the candle out.

The light before him vanished, the smoke remaining twisted and turned around the candle and its burned-out wick, rising to the ceiling and disappearing there, escaping to the world around him. All Ryou could hear was the faint whisper of his own breathing, and the imagined whispers dancing about his head. Whispers he knew were not real, or at least not as real as he thought they were, but whispers that still haunted him and sent chills through his blood.

A second-long instinct told him to run, his heart pounding, but as he had long trained himself, he remained still, and just watched the smoke from the candle fade into the air.

He felt the cold metal of the Ring under his white uniform shirt, and he kept his twitching fingers from reaching up and moving it away. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then open again. Then he sighed, plucked the candle from its spot in the roll, and set it aside.

The roll and the candle sat on the table in his main room as he gathered his uniform jacket and slipped on his shoes by the front door. All the nightlights still gleamed in the horrible darkness, comforting in their own small way, but the cold within him would not leave. He knew actually getting out of the apartment wasn't going to help. And yet somehow, just the thought of staying here made something deep within him cringe.

He let out a long breath, opened the door, and started down toward the street.

The elevator ride was routine by now. He made it every day. Up and down, up and down, eight floors. There was never anything different about it, except on the days when the electricity was faulty and the lights flickered, and for moments he would be left in complete darkness, moving down but not sure where he was or whether or not he was alone.

It was then that he would feel the Ring there more than ever. It was then that he was reminded of all he was no longer free to do or to be. It was then that he truly realized the bars all around him, keeping him in, only moved when he was dragged along by the voice that laughed in his head.

The numbers above the door lit up to floor one, and the doors opened to the mansion lobby.

No one was here this late except the receptionist, and she smiled at him like she always did. He nodded, but just looked away and stared at the floor as he walked, slow, steady, and always careful toward the door. He wanted to smile back at her. Wave, strike up a conversation like he had once done all the time.

But if he showed any care toward anyone, _he_ labeled them a target. And Ryou wasn't about to do that to anyone else.

He shuffled through the front doors of the mansion, step by step, never looking up more than a glance to see where he was going and never stopping, even when the door bumped him in the back as he walked out and even when he half-tripped on the sidewalk as he started into the night.

It was dark out there. Nervously so, so much that a little part of him, that instinct he could not keep quiet, wanted to run back into his own apartment and turn on all the lights. But there were still the stars, and the moon that glowed a gentle crescent. The moon that was there no matter what. The moon that would always be there, no matter what happened in his own life, no matter how frightening things had become.

That world far away where nothing else mattered.

Sometimes he wondered if the voice in his head would still follow him around if he decided to become an astronaut.

The warm breeze of late summer ruffled his hair, and he remembered those days so long ago when he would go outside and dance in the leaves when they grew red and fell to the ground, when he didn't care who laughed when he sung silly songs in the front yard of the old house. Because while so many might have been laughing at him, there was always that little girl on the porch laughing and singing right along with him, clapping her hands when he did a fast twirl and squealing when he ran back to the house to lift her as high as his little arms could and dancing around with her together in the grass.

It had been a very long time since that had happened. A very long time since he had sung or danced anywhere, especially in public. But he could still dream. The voice hadn't stopped his dreams yet. It probably _could, _but it didn't. It never quite went that far.

Ryou's feet moved of their own accord, right on the edge of the street leading somewhere he did not yet know. He didn't care where he was going. Far away, maybe, somewhere where all of this wasn't as bad as it seemed. Somewhere where he could truly be safe. Somewhere where cars that worked perfectly didn't swerve in the rain, somewhere where ancient artifacts fathers gave their sons didn't come with spirits inside that cackled and took over your life.

Somewhere where he could still dance in the late summer breeze, and there would be someone there to dance with him.

He looked up, and he froze where he had stopped.

Ryou had heard that moments like these were supposed to slow down. Slow so much that you could see and hear everything to its very best, so you could remember every instant of what happened and never, ever forget it.

But it was not like that to him. It happened in a split second, when all he had time to do was realize that he had started to wander away from the side of the street, and hear the overbearing horn and the screeching of tires as they raced toward him, closer and closer. He didn't have time to think about what was going to happen, to see his life flash before his eyes or any of that silliness he saw in movies. He just stood there, seeing the flash of headlights and not having a second to think about what the pain of the impact would be. To think about all he was about to lose.

And he only had a split instant to realize when he was forced back into darkness. Away from everything, as if he was flying backwards at the speed of light. Rational thought left him in half a blink, and he felt himself curled up but not _really _curled up in the deep nothingness of his own mind.

Despite how short a time he had, though, Ryou did have an instant to feel the odd, far-off sensation of leaping feet and the impact of concrete scraping his side, and the faint but sharp words that echoed in his fading mind.

_Stupid yadonushi …_

* * *

><p>It was dark.<p>

He was used to it, or at least he should have been. But this kind of darkness was the sort of thing that always startled him no matter how often it happened, and put him in an instant state of panic and alert.

But as soon as he tried to push forward, to fight like he always did, like he knew would make him get hurt in the end but he did it anyway, he felt himself shoved back. Usually it was like a slap to the face, like being smothered with a pillow with no arms or legs to fight away his attacker. But this time, it was just a shove. Not gentle by any means, but it wasn't as harsh, wasn't as painful or rough.

He tried again, once more, but this time no shove was necessary for him to fall back into that small corner of his own mind. Weakness, dizziness, a complete uncertainty of anything washed through him, and he found he had no more strength to fight. All he could do was observe, and try to figure out what was happening outside.

His body was walking.

Well. The one _inside _his body was walking. Not running, not giving threats or punching someone in the face or trapping souls where they did not belong. Just walking, with a brisk and stiff but somehow softer pace. Across sidewalks, next to streets, and after a minute, into the familiar mansion and up the elevator to the eighth floor.

_You really are an idiot, you know._

Ryou blinked—though he knew he was not really blinking—and looked around, but again, all he could see was the dark. He could feel, to some extent, but it was so far away that knowing anything other than that the elevator was still moving them up to his apartment was difficult, if not impossible. His side stung, as did his right knee, but he might have been imagining that part, too.

He focused all the messy energy flowing through his mind and forced it into some sense of order.

_… what?_

A scoff. Very annoyed, by the sound of it, but also tired, as if the source of the voice had already gotten fed up with everything and just wasn't going to put the energy into dealing with it anymore. Either that, or it had somehow become … gentle.

_You're an _idiot. _Standing there in the middle of the street. You might as well have jumped out there and _screamed _for someone to hit you._

Memories flashed through Ryou's mind. Still vague, and so hard to read, but he managed it. The headlights of a car. Honking. Screeching tires, and being shoved out of the way by his own body.

He tried again to push himself forward. One last time. It was a weak attempt, and he knew from the beginning that it wouldn't work, but the other one still rolled his eyes—though Ryou was not sure how he knew—and gave him a mental push back toward that quiet corner of his mind. Ryou sighed to himself and wrapped his nonexistent arms around knees he knew were not really there.

No one was in danger. No one was going to get hurt. And he had no more energy to fight off the one who was now walking his body down the short hallway toward home.

_You … stopped that car?_

_ No, you imbecile, I pulled _you _out of the _way _of the car. _Ryou didn't even flinch at the sharpness of the tone echoing around him. _The driver got out afterwards, something about 'making sure you were alright,' but I dealt with him._

Ryou stiffened. _You …!_

_ I didn't take his soul. He should be waking up right about now on the side of the road with a headache._

Even though he knew he shouldn't have relaxed at violence, he felt himself breathe a quiet sigh of relief and settle in more where he was. He pushed back the images of blood and death and stolen lives as far as he was able, then he blinked and opened his eyes in full, even though it did no good and he could still see nothing at all.

The other was turning the key in the lock.

Ryou was tired, as he was only just now truly beginning to realize. Tired enough to fall back into unconsciousness, to just let himself fade away until he was returned to his body—there was no use in fighting it in his current state. But just vaguely, he could hear that foreign spirit sigh. Not so much in frustration, but with an emotion Ryou found very difficult to read.

It wasn't relief. He knew it couldn't be relief. But it almost sounded like it.

_Next time you decide to go out on a midnight stroll, _came the softer tones of the familiar voice. _Try not to get so distracted._

Ryou said—or rather, thought—nothing in response. He just stayed there in his little corner in the odd safety of his own darkness, as the one who moved his body for him opened the door and stepped into the apartment.

He didn't have a lot of memories of the time when he was shoved into the back of his mind, when the _other _took over, when he realized in all horrific truth of what he had gotten himself into the moment he had first put on that accursed Ring. Most of the time, it was like he was asleep. Sometimes having a horrible nightmare, of blood and death and tears and screams, but most of the time it was just nothing. Nothing until he opened his eyes in his body again and saw what he had done.

What he had been made to do.

But what he _did _remember, those few times when the strange spirit—or whatever it was—had allowed him to watch what was happening, either out of simple lack of willingness to keep him unaware, or a twisted, cruel joke … he couldn't have forgotten those times if he lived to be one hundred and twenty. When he felt the fear and the anger and the sick pleasure that other being got from causing pain. When he felt it all, like he was watching from afar and being tortured himself and _being _the torturer all at once. Those were the times that left him scared of the dark.

What he was experiencing now, curled up in the blackness around him, was very little like that at all.

It was dark, of course, and he still had little idea of what was going on except for what that other gave him in little pieces of information and sense. But the fear and horror that usually pulsed through his veins had fled, and he was left in its place with a sense of almost peace and calm. Something he had not truly felt in a long time, even when awake.

Ryou felt his body walking into his bedroom and not bothering to change into his pajamas, though he could feel his clothes still covered with dirt and what would probably turn out to be blood from his knee and his side, and maybe a little on his shoulder. He felt himself lowered by a force within that very body onto the mattress of his bed. Never seeing the sheets that had grown stiff and dusty from never being made or hearing the creaking of the old springs. But feeling it, in a vague sort of way he couldn't have described for the life of him, and had never really wanted to.

He heard a sigh inside his head.

_You, yadonushi … _A pause, and another breath of exasperation as the sheets were pulled up to his chin. Ryou felt himself being lifted from the darkness and gradually shifting into the body again, though he was far too tired to actually try out his new freedom of motion. _… have a very odd idea of how to spend your birthday._

Ryou wanted to open his eyes, but the last influence of the other kept them closed, until that last influence faded and Ryou's interest in looking around had disappeared as well.

He imagined someone who looked like him but _didn't _look like him and _wasn't _him standing against the wall, far away from the window and in the furthest reach of the shadows. He imagined eyes that did not meet his, scowling off into the distance at something that wasn't there. He imagined a final glance in his direction, coated in harshness and irritation, but deep down soaked in something more gentle, like good and bad were fighting for control in the other, and the good and bad weren't really sure which was which.

He shifted further under the covers and let himself breathe out, long and slow and loud.

"Thank you," came the soft whisper from his lips that he didn't remember thinking before. He did not see it, but he felt the spirit looking at him. "For saving me."

In the back of his mind, coated over with the vagueness and uncertainty of sleep as it descended upon him, Ryou was almost sure he heard a scoff and felt the distinct sense of someone shaking their head.

_Happy birthday, idiot._

Ryou's lips twitched up into a smile he didn't know if he meant.

And somewhere in the far corners of his soul, the other being rolled his eyes and sent him off to sleep.


End file.
